Scientists uncover new details on Tasmanian devil
cancer

post from AMERICAblog News on 01 January 2010 02:50:00 PM. © AMERICAblog News

Whether there will be enough time to save the species from extinction is hard to say. The cancer has wiped out 70% of the population in a relatively short period of time.

The surprise finding, reported in Friday's edition of the journal Science, has led to development of a test to help diagnose this tumor.

Next, scientists are hunting the mutations that turned these cells rogue, work they hope could one day lead to a vaccine to protect remaining Tasmanian devils, or perhaps treatments.

"The clock's ticking," lead researcher Elizabeth Murchison of the Australian National University said by phone from Tasmania. "It's awful to think there could be no devils here in 50 years because they're dying so quickly."

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Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life, by Bill Minutaglio and
W. Michael Smith

post from Everyday Citizen on 01 January 2010 02:39:37 PM. © Everyday Citizen

Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life (PublicAffairs Books, 2009) is the story of an exceptionally privileged[...]

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Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life

post from Everyday Citizen on 01 January 2010 02:39:37 PM. © Everyday Citizen

Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life (PublicAffairs Books, 2009) is the story of an exceptionally privileged[...]

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Some Contrarian 2010 Predictions

post from TPMCafe on 01 January 2010 02:34:00 PM. © TPMCafe

I was at a dinner party on Wednesday night and we were each asked to give a couple of predictions for 2010. Here are mine.

China Trade War- The Chinese government is acting like a classic 19th Century Mercantilist Power using currency manipulation, trade barriers and outright IPR theft to keep exports high and imports low. They may pretend they have the upper hand with us because they own $2 trillion of our Treasury debt, but that's a fallacy, Any attempt on their part to exit the Treasury Market would hurt their dollar reserve positions more than any other player. They are no longer our banker, they are our partner. The tariffs we put on their dumped tires are just the start. If they want to build solar panels and wind turbines for America, they are going to have to manufacture them in the U.S. using American workers, just like the Japanese automakers do. The old nostrums of "free trade" will be replaced by the new cry of "fair trade". BTW- Krugman's column this morning agrees.

2010 Election-Here I'm going out on a limb completely against the conventional wisdom which forecasts a big win for the Republicans in the 2010 Congressional elections. I think President Obama and his political staff of Axelrod and Plouffe will look back to FDR's first congressional campaign in 1934 where he ran against three elements and actually picked up seats for the Democrats. The first target of his wrath was the "fat cat bankers".

Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence....The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

The second battle front was with the Liberty League, a corporate front organization funded by Dupont, U.S. Steel, General Motors, General Foods, Standard Oil, Birdseye, Colgate, Heinz Foods, Chase National Bank, and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. It was fronted by a conservative Democrat, former Presidential candidate Al Smith, who acted very much like Joe Lieberman today. As Nick Taylor, in American-Made points out, their view of Roosevelt's first year was clear.

The government had no right to control their property and income. It was the beginning of the end, the start of a long slide from centralized government and the dilution of states' rights straight downhill to socialism.

Sound familiar?

And finally FDR had to battle the far left, in the person of Kingfish:The Reign of Huey P. Long of Louisiana, who claimed 27,000 chapters of his Share Our Wealth Society and millions of members dedicated to "break up the swollen fortunes of America and to spread the wealth among the people." For Long, nothing short of nationalization of banks and industry would do.

Roosevelt's appeal to the public was clear. "Do you want to return to the policies of Herbert Hoover and the Republican majority that got us in this mess, or will you give me a very strong working majority in both House and Senate to finish the critical work of reform and economic revival we have just started?" In the end FDR gained 9 seats in the Senate and had a 69 to 25 majority in the Senate and a 322 to 103 majority in the House. The real changes of the New Deal began in 1935.

Of course the only way this is going to happen is if Obama makes this a National Election in the same way FDR did--taking on the bankers, the corporate Republican interests as well as holding off the far left cries for nationalization. The Chicago political team better plan to have the President spend September and October on the road fighting for his agenda and his party. Then he could reignite the coalition that worked in 2008.

China - Government - United States - 19th century - Politics

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New Years Resolution Music Jam

post from Firedoglake on 01 January 2010 02:30:17 PM. © Firedoglake

What have you been listening to of late--both new and old--that has really rocked your soul? What new bands have been busy making great music while I've been buried in a sometimes futile fight against DC culture?[...]

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Minnesota State Senate candidate removes racist
comments from his Twitter feed.

post from Think Progress on 01 January 2010 02:30:00 PM. © Think Progress

Local bloggers are reporting that Minnesota State Senate candidate Mike Parry removed more than 43 racist and homophobic tweets from his Twitter feed after progressives began researching and responding to him. The Minnesota Independent highlights one of Parry’s scrubbed tweets, which was apparently directed at President Barack Obama:

The day after the New York Times published an editorial on the Matthew Shepard Act and a week after it was passed in the House, Parry posted a tweet stating “what’s with Dems and Pedophiles?” After winning the GOP’s endorsement this week, Parry aptly described himself as “pro-life, a Christian, a second amendment rights supporter, a hard worker and not politically correct.”

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Are doctors scaring patients with health care
woes

post from The Politics of Jamie Sanderson on 01 January 2010 02:28:00 PM. © The Politics of Jamie Sanderson

A friend of mine today talked to me about something that is disturbing and down right wrong if it is exactly happening.

Doctors in South Carolina may be telling elderly patients they might not be able to practice if health care reform is signed into law, my friend said. To that, I responded like any moral, knowledgeable person would.

That's a damn shame.

Let me be the first to say right now that if there is any truth to this it needs to stop. There is no need to keep people in fear because of what leaders and people want: Honest doctors who do not abuse the system with overzealous charges and quality, affordable care in return. I hope this is not happening here in Georgetown.

Caregivers need to worry more about their patients and their needs instead of listening to the rhetoric spewed by talk show hosts paid to do it and lawmakers paid to protect wealth over need. If they are truly concerned about their salary, then do not involve the patients because it results in mass hysteria.

Furthermore, a guide for the elderly has been prepared in regards to health care reform and is available here.

Honestly, doctors are probably scared of their pay being affected. As if they are hurting now.

Have you read your receipts? Your bills? Look at the charges. I am aware of overhead, but let's deal with it realistically rather than scaring patients.

This is one of the many things that needs to change if they are in fact afraid of losing the money.

President Obama spoke to the American Medical Association this week to assure doctors that changes in health care would help them better serve patients. Many studies have shown that patient care and spending vary enormously from community to community, depending on local practices, which are largely determined by doctors.

J. James Rohack, a practicing cardiologist in Texas, is the president of the American Medical Association, had some interesting views in his column.

President Obama received a standing ovation in his address to the American Medical Association on Monday when he said that ?you did not enter this profession to be bean-counters and paper-pushers. You entered this profession to be healers, and that?s what our health care system should let you be.?
Physicians want to spend more time with patients and focus on not just treating disease, but preventing it in the first place. To do this, physicians should be offered incentives to work with each other and other health care providers to coordinate care and to invest the time and resources needed to truly manage chronic disease.

Liam Yore is an emergency room doctor in suburban Seattle and administrator of a medical group practice. He is the author of the blog Movin? Meat, which focuses on the practice of emergency medicine and health policy had good points as well.

Meanwhile, office-based primary care doctors struggle. The compensation for an office visit is a tiny fraction of that for the simplest procedures. The family physician must rush from patient to patient just to keep pace with static or diminishing reimbursement. Fewer and fewer medical students are going into primary care.

What we need to do is rebalance physician compensation away from procedures and toward primary care. Surgeons can easily earn three to five times the average salary of a family doctor. The compensation for surgical procedures should be reduced, and the savings realized should be applied toward increasing pay for primary care physicians.

Valid points are being made by doctors in the field, but to scare your patients into believing you might not be around to take care of them because of reform and they'll be alone is just flat wrong.

If you are a doctor and are acting this way, you should be ashamed of yourself.

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Emancipation parade held today in Georgetown

A parade remembering emancipation was held today in Georgetown because the organizer wanted "children to know more about the history of freedom, and enslaved people" and to bring back a tradition.

Helen Grate had been trying for six years to get something organized and I applaud her efforts.

I hope the parade turned out well. If anyone reading this attended, please share your story with me and I'll post it here.

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A New Year, a New 'Liberation' Strategy

A couple of posts below, Bernie Avishai bears brave witness to an increasingly irresistible logic of non-violent protest in Israel-Palestine. This time it's by Jewish Israelis on behalf of Palestinians driven out of homes in East Jerusalem, but Palestinians are warming to this strategy, too, as he reports.

Some on the "people's liberation," "violent struggle" left still don't get this, any more than right-wing Zionists get it, even decades after Gandhi, King, Mandela, and dissidents in Eastern Europe showed how and when it can work. It certainly could in Israel-Palestine: In April I linked a colorful, counter-intuitive essay by the Israeli writer Gershom Gorenberg that bears reading in support and explanation of what Bernie is witnessing.

Before you scoff at this approach, you really owe it to yourself to read also "Coercive Non-violence isn't What You May Think," which notes that often power grows from voluntary consent but is doomed by violent imposition, even by violent "people's liberation" movements. Romantics of armed-struggle nationalism, Israeli or Palestinian, aren't quite wise or brave enough to recognize this and deliver on it. Avishai is both. Read Bernie's post and its accompanying report by another participant, and forward it to anyone you know in Israel and Palestine.

East Jerusalem - Israel - Israel-Palestine - Middle East - Warfare and Conflict

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The Daily Rant: I Am A Liberal Elitist Edition

I am wondering when the rightwingers will renew their moronic demands to call them "homicide bombers," because "suicide bombers" is too "soft" or something, despite the fact that it's merely DESCRIPTIVE. Remember THAT absurdity? Yeah. This uptick in these people's lamebrained criticism of Obama as being "soft on terror" -- never mind "terror" being a fucking FEELING -- is just astonishing. All they want is for Obama to use stronger... LANGUAGE? Because that worked SO well when Bush did it, right?

And what really boggles the mind -- well, not really... remember, we're dealing with the American public, and no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public -- is that this barrage of bullshit is actually WORKING. The do-nothing, present NO SOLUTIONS Republican Party... is slated to PICK UP SEATS in 2010?

Un-fucking-believable.

And yet... believable, as I said.

I renew my call for voters to have to take a test (the one that applicants have to take before they get their citizenship) before they can cast their ballots.

I mean it. Yeah, you got it -- I AM an elitist. And I'm talking a step ABOVE a literacy test -- I'm talking a POLITICAL, CULTURAL literacy test. You have to know how many goddamned people sit on the Supreme Court before you get to vote for your Congressional representatives, let alone for President.

I am sick to fucking DEATH of mouthbreathing morons running this country.

AND voting for them.

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